Doping Attitudes and the Use of Legal and Illegal Performance-Enhancing Substances Among Italian Adolescents

Abstract

Using retrospective self-reporting, rates of illegal and legal performance-enhancing substance (PES) use in the past three months among more than 3,400 Italian high school adolescents were obtained and estimated. The study focused on the extent to which these sociodemographic characteristics and illegal PES use were associated with adolescents' positive attitudes toward illegal PES use. Results showed that it is relatively rare for youths to report use of illegal performance-enhancing substances in the past three months, and that male, relatively older, and athlete students were significantly more likely to use illegal PES than their respective counterparts. The results also showed that illegal PES users and male, older, and athlete students held stronger attitudes favoring illegal PES use. Finally, results showed that those student athletes who reported having used legal PES in the past three months were 10 times more likely to also have used illegal PES than those student athletes who did not report having used legal PES

Sport-Induced Substance Use—An Empirical Study to the Extent within a German Sports Association

“…Its significance as a determinant of doping prevalence in amateur and recreational sport was shown in studies among gym users [1–2, 18] as well as for the use of anabolic androgenic steroids among university students ([3–9, 16], 14 more studies from the United States, cited in [5], 25 studies and three periodically conducted national youth surveys in the U.S., cited in [11], and three studies from Great Britain and Germany, cited in [10]). This effect was also shown in a special mixed sample of at-risk individuals [9], as well as in studies on doping substances in general among university students [17]. Few studies where the influence of gender was investigated offered no support for this determinant [19] or provided contradictory results [20].…”

“…For a similar population from Sweden, the overall proportion of doping was reported at 1.6% [16]. A study among Italian high school attendees found a prevalence rate of 1.5% for using illegal performance enhancing substances, while the total rate of substance use for performance enhancement was 6.8% [17]. As the focus of the study was substance use during the last three months, the reported prevalence might be low in comparison to other studies considering a longer period for reporting use.…”

“…Additionally studies have identified further social background variables such as social status [4, 7, 9, 12, 20, 21] and the intensity of involvement in sport [2, 7, 17, 19, 22] as determinants of doping. As we were not able to test hypotheses on these parameters due to the limited number of responses to our survey (see results section), we will not discuss these variables in detail.…”

Exploring Knowledge, Attitudes and Abuse Concerning Doping in Sport among Syrian Pharmacy Students

“…Most dangerously, doping is no longer restricted to elite athletes. Numerous studies have reported the use of doping agents among young sportspeople in schools, non-competing amateurs and gymnasium clients; for many of whom body appearance, and not in necessary competing in games, is a priority [4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Estimates reveal that between 1-3 million Americans [11] and 50,000-100,000 Swedish [12], equate to approximately 1% of the population of both countries, have misused anabolic steroids.…”

“…A more recent study [27], published whilst the current work was in the writing up stage, revealed that pharmacy students in Japan did not have opportunities to learn about doping and supplement intake and that the basic knowledge they had might cause confusion. Most interestingly, pharmacy students are at an age group to which significant proportions of doping abusers belong [4][5][6][7][8][9][10], hence, some of them might have a personal experience with doping abuse. Therefore, beside good knowledge about doping it is equally important for pharmacy students, who are the future pharmacists, to develop proper attitudes that allow them to participate efficiently in the fight against doping when they become qualified pharmacists.…”